Addressing the gender pay gap: Government and social partner actions – Italy
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In Italy, differences in pay between the genders are still wide. Although there are signs of a reduction in the overall pay gap, the component due to discrimination against women is still very large, and it is increasing. This report looks at the main legislative initiatives and actions by the social partners to address the problem directly. The report also emphasises the general marginality of the issue in Italy and the weak implementation of measures.
1. The gender pay gap: national data
1.1. Please provide the reference details (see fact-sheet below), including a brief summary, of the main studies and research on the size and the determinants of the gender pay gap in your country published in the period 1999-2009.
| National studies on the gender pay gap | Fact-sheet no. |
|---|---|
| Title | Differenziale salariale di genere e lavori tipicamente femminili. |
| Authors | Marco Centra and Andrea Cutillo |
| Year of publication | 2009 |
| Bibliographic references | Centra M. and Cutillo A. (2009), Differenziale salariale di genere e lavori tipicamente femminili, Studi Isfol, n. 2009/2 – January. |
| Link to electronic copy of the report | http://www.isfol.it/DocEditor/test/File/Studi_Isfol_Occupazione_n_2-09.pdf |
| Coverage (nation-wide, sectors, occupations, regions, etc: please specify in detail) | Nation-wide. |
| Time span (e.g. 1995-2003) | 2007 |
| Data-set (official, ad-hoc survey or study, etc: please specify in detail) | Ad-hoc survey: sample of 5,641 working-age women (15-64 years old), of whom 59.5% in employment, and 4,728 men in dependent employment. |
| Type of analyses performed on the data-set (methods, e.g. Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition) | Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition. Bivariate probit model with selection for the simultaneous estimation of equations for the decision whether or not to work and for the decision whether to accept a typically female job. Two-stage Heckman procedure for calculation of the selection term. |
| Main results. Unadjusted gender pay gap (W/M%*): please indicate both levels and trends | Hourly gender pay gap (in logarithms and mean terms): 8.75% (W/M% not available). When the above effect selection is not considered, women’s productivity is 6.65% higher than that of men (effect of the Oaxaca-Blinder equation due to the characteristics), while the discrimination effect is more than 15.41%. |
| Main results. Adjusted gender pay gap (W/M%*): please indicate both levels and trends | Hourly gender pay gap (in logarithms and mean terms): 8.75% (W/M% not available). When the above effect selection is considered, women’s productivity is 2.08% higher than that of men, while the discrimination effect is 10.83%. |
| Main results. Please list the individual and/or workplace variables taken into consideration in the adjusted gender pay gap (e.g. education, age, seniority, working hours, occupation, region, sector, firm size, etc.) | Age, citizenship, area of residence, demographic size of the municipality, educational qualification, years in work, years current job, changes of job, type of contract (fixed-term and part-time), size of the firm, estimated probability of having a typically female occupation. |
| Main results. Which ‘institutional’ or policy variables (qualitative or quantitative) have been taken into account in the study? Is there evidence (i.e. in multi-national studies incorporating your country, or when observing a national switch in policies such as, for instance, the introduction of sectoral minimum wages) that certain institutional factors or policies have tended to affect (narrow) the gender pay gap? | Institutional variables have not been expressly considered. However, the discrimination experienced by women employed in the public sector is considerably less than that of female workers in the private sector (7.5% against 12.9%). This difference is attributed to the close regulation of access to, and advancement in, public-sector employment (e.g. by competitive examinations). |
| Main results. The determinants of the gender pay gap: please provide a brief summary | The hourly wage differential is at least partly due to two processes of voluntary selection by women: the decision whether or not to work, and the type of job. Both processes are influenced by the fact that, still today in Italy, it is mainly women who attend to household management and childcare. The remaining part of the hourly wage differential is due to discrimination, which decreases as the education level increases if women are considered with qualifications below or equal to an upper-secondary school diploma. It rises to 12.1% for women with university-level qualifications. This result shows the existence of the so-called ‘glass ceiling’. |
| Main results. Policy recommendations: please provide a brief summary | None. |
Note: * Female pay as a percentage of male pay.
| National studies on the gender pay gap | Fact-sheet no. |
|---|---|
| Title | Differenziali salariali per sesso in Italia. Problemi di stima ed evidenze empiriche. |
| Authors | Tindara Addabbo and Donata Favaro. |
| Year of publication | 2007 |
| Bibliographic references | Addabbo T. and Favaro D. (2007), Differenziali salariali per sesso in Italia. Problemi di stima ed evidenze empiriche, in Rustichelli E. (eds.), Esiste un differenziale retributivo di genere in Italia, Roma, ISFOL, 2007. |
| Link to electronic copy of the report | http://www.lavoro.gov.it/NR/rdonlyres/F6D4ACEA-15EC-4BDF-AA03-77CA4412BA97/0/Differenziale_CAP_8.pdf |
| Coverage (nation-wide, sectors, occupations, regions, etc: please specify in detail) | Nation-wide. |
| Time span (e.g. 1995-2003) | 2001 |
| Data-set (official, ad-hoc survey or study, etc: please specify in detail) | European Community Household Panel (ECHP): sample of dependent employees aged between 15 and 65. |
| Type of analyses performed on the data-set (methods, e.g. Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition) | Two-stage Heckman model to take account of non-random selection in the calculation of the wage disparity coefficient and Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition. |
| Main results. Unadjusted gender pay gap (W/M%*): please indicate both levels and trends | None. |
| Main results. Adjusted gender pay gap (W/M%*): please indicate both levels and trends | The pay gap, in logarithmic and mean terms, is around 6% (W/M% not available). The proportion of the overall wage differential due to returns/rewards? is 18%. Pissarides et al. (2005, Wage gaps, Ch. 5, Part I, in Boeri, T., Del Boca, D., and Pissarides, C. (eds.), Women at work. An economic perspective, Oxford: Oxford University Press) estimate a two-stage Heckman model on a similar sample from ECHP 1998 data to find a gap component due to rewards equal to 16%, compared with a mean (in logarithmic terms) pay gap of 8.5%. This comparison seems to confirm a decrease in the pay gap over most recent years but an increase in the proportion of it due to discrimination. |
| Main results. Please list the individual and/or workplace variables taken into consideration in the adjusted gender pay gap (e.g. education, age, seniority, working hours, occupation, region, sector, firm size, etc.) | Educational qualification, generic labour-market experience, sector of work, level of supervision, tenure, type of contract (part-time, fixed-term, other), occupation, size of firm, region, Mill’s ratio. |
| Main results. Which ‘institutional’ or policy variables (qualitative or quantitative) have been taken into account in the study? Is there evidence (i.e. in multi-national studies incorporating your country, or when observing a national switch in policies such as, for instance, the introduction of sectoral minimum wages) that certain institutional factors or policies have tended to affect (narrow) the gender pay gap? | One of the main factors widening the pay gap in Italy is the high presence of the women in non-standard jobs (with fixed-term and part-time contracts). |
| Main results. The determinants of the gender pay gap: please provide a brief summary | Generic labour-market experience and educational qualification, together with the high presence of women in non-standard jobs, explain the bulk of the wage differential between men and women unexplained by differences in characteristics. The wage differential between men and women persists across the entire wage distribution. However, the pay gap due to discrimination is greater at very high and very low income levels. Moreover, the wage differential is higher for lower-educated female workers across the entire wage distribution, but is especially high in its lowest and highest parts, confirming the existence of both a ‘sticky floor’ and a ‘glass ceiling’. For higher-educated women, the wage differential is smaller on average than for lower-educated women, but increases across the wage distribution, confirming the existence of a ‘glass ceiling’ effect. |
| Main results. Policy recommendations: please provide a brief summary | Greater provision of early childhood services (in Italy, in September 2000, the average amount of day nursery places on the total resident population, aged between 0 and 2 years old, was 6.5%). |
Note: * Female pay as a percentage of male pay.
1.2. Are there any studies published in the 1999-2009 period, possibly using qualitative methods, which investigate the social processes which contribute to determining the gender pay gap through selection, occupational segregation, discrimination, and the like? Is there any research on the development of pay gaps during the life course? Do pay gaps emerge at the beginning of the individual careers of women or do they become significant at later stages of professional development? Because of different gendered career paths or because pay gaps tend to increase as the professional career advances (i.e. higher gaps at higher organisation positions)?
According to a survey promoted by the Italian Institute of Statistics (Istituto italiano di statistica, Istat), 30.6% the gender wage differential in Italy in 2002 was explained by the occupational segregation of women (female employment mostly concentrated in low-wage jobs) and 69.4% of it by the discrimination effect (unfavourable treatment of women, individual characteristics remaining equal) (Istat, Rapporto annuale: la situazione del paese nel 2004, Roma: Istat, 2005).
Both individual choices (as regards training, work and family), diversified by gender, and the structure of labour demand and of internal labour markets - which discriminate against women by blocking their access to better-paid jobs - are explained by a set of factors connected with the traditional gender division of labour. The discrimination effect can be attributed to the belief among employers that women are less committed to their work than men because of their greater family responsibilities.
According to the same survey, the predominant factor explaining the gender wage differential is age. In fact, wages increase more rapidly with age for men than for women: whereas for men the return on one more year of age is 0.8%, for women it diminishes to 0.5%.
Similar results have been obtained by Rustichelli, when he analyses Inps 2002 data (Rustichelli, E., I differenziali retributivi di genere, in Battistoni, L. (ed.), I numeri delle donne 2005, Quaderni Spinn n. 17, 2005). While in the 15-to-20 age band the wage differential does not exceed six percentage points, at the culmination of the work career (at around 55 years old) the raw wage differentials in the private sector exceed 30 percentage points. This substantial difference in the returns to experience in the labour market (approximated by the age variable) is probably due to the fact that women have more fragmented career paths because of interruptions due maternity or care for family members which slow down career advancement and determine a less steep wage/age profile. Moreover, again because of greater family responsibilities, women are more likely to prefer more stable and secure jobs, even if they have less marked wage growth profiles. Hence, their mobility in the labour market in search of better-paid jobs may be less than that of men. However, also the returns associated with occupations generally indicate discrimination against women. In comparison with white-collar occupations, which define the basic profile, the rewards from managerial and executive occupations are 95.2% for men and only 38.5% for women. For unskilled occupations, the penalty is 14.5% for men and 9.6% for women. Forming an exception are the specialized professions, where the reward is greater for women than for men (respectively +97.4% and +85.3%). In the case of executive jobs, the reward is instead greater for women, with a value equal to 27.5% against the 23.5% for men. This finding is confirmed by Rustichelli, who observes that the pay gap is wider, the higher the position in the profession: negative values of the raw wage differential are not infrequent among apprentices, while among blue-collars, office workers and managers ‘positive signs’ predominate.
1.3. Are there any studies in your country on how gender differentials of pay have been affected by the current economic crisis?
Published studies on the effects of the economic crisis on the gender pay differential are not yet available.
2. Government initiatives to address the gender pay gap
2.1. In light of the current economic crisis, has the national government taken any steps to assess and monitor the impact of the current economic downturn on gender pay inequalities? If yes, please briefly illustrate them, including the results of such assessment. Has the government started any initiatives to prevent or address the possible widening of the gender pay gap because of the economic downturn?
Since the autumn of 2008, the Italian government has introduced no measures to monitor or prevent the effects of the economic crisis on the gender wage gap.
A proposal in this regard has been made by the largest opposition party, the Partito Democratico (PD) which, on 30 April 2009, launched a campaign to collect signatures for a parliamentary bill tabled on public initiative and entitled ‘Measures to favour female employment and family/work reconciliation’.
In March 2009, the Minister for Equal Opportunities met representatives of the trade unions to discuss the gender wage gap and female careers. It was decided to create a consultative panel on technical matters connected with the female condition in the world of work and transposition of Directive 2006/54/EC. To date, however, no news as to the work of this committee is available.
2.2. Please illustrate the major government initiatives to address the gender pay gap put in place since 2005. Since there is extensive legislation on gender equality, interventions are usually of an indirect nature.
There follows a description of the main equal opportunity initiatives directly or indirectly concerning the gender wage gap undertaken since 2005.
Legislative Decree of 11 April 2006, no. 198, ‘Codice delle pari opportunità tra uomo e donna’, repealed numerous laws and gathered all the legislation on the subject into a consolidate text. The decree prohibited discrimination between men and women and defined the creation, functions, duration and composition of a series of bodies (Commissione per le pari opportunità fra uomo e donna; Comitato nazionale per l’attuazione dei principi di parità di trattamento ed uguaglianza di opportunità tra lavoratori e lavoratrici; Collegio per l’istruzione degli atti relativi alla individuazione e alla rimozione delle discriminazioni; Comitato per l’imprenditoria femminile). The decree also prohibited all forms of discrimination in access to work, wages, employment conditions, and career.
As regards wage discrimination, article 28 (ex art. 2 of law no. 903 of 9 December 1977) stipulates that:
- A female worker is entitled to the same wage as a male worker when the job is the same or of equal value.
- Job classification systems to determine wage levels must adopt the same criteria for men and women.
Article 10 establishing the tasks of the equal opportunities’ committee states that it must
propose solutions for collective disputes, also encouraging the parties to adopt positive action schemes for the removal of prior discrimination or disparities between men and women in relation to hiring, training and professional development, work and pay conditions, if necessary establishing, according to recommendations by the board, the amount of co-financing for the costs connected with their implementation.
Article 42, on the adoption and aims of positive actions, states that one of their purposes should be
to deal with work conditions, organisation and distribution, which provoke different gender effects for employees with prejudice to training, career advancement and pay.
Finally, article 46 (ex art. 9 of law 125 of 1991) stipulates that
public and private enterprises with more than one hundred employees must compile an at least two-yearly report on the situation of male and female personnel in all occupations and in relation to hirings, training, promotions, levels, changes of category or qualification, other mobility phenomena, recourse to the wages guarantee fund (Cassa integrazione guadagni, Cig), dismissals, early retirements and retirements, and wages.
These reports have to be sent both to the Regional Equal Opportunities Adviser (Consigliera regionale di parità), and to workplace union structure. In principle, these reports constitute an important tool for monitoring the gender pay gap in Italy. However, the legislation has been scarcely implemented: the collection and analysis of pay-related data is hampered by several obstacles. First, there are procedure-related problems: troublesome interpretation of the guidelines to fill in the forms and scarce homogeneity of the data. In this respect, however, it is worth pointing out that in 2006, Italia Lavoro - public agency aimed to promote actions on labour policies, employment and social inclusions - has developed an open-source software to standardise data collection. Furthermore, there are technical problems: the forms contain a ‘gross yearly salary’ field that merges very different job positions, such as part-time workers and occasional workers. Data are organised according to type of contracts: this creates problems of data homogeneity since the definition of contractual levels varies within different contracts. Finally, it should be stressed that this tool doesn’t cover a lot of Italian enterprises: it targets companies with more than 100 employees in a country such as Italy, where small-medium businesses are prevalent.
Legislative decree of 11 of April 2006, no. 198, states that the national equal opportunity and treatment committee must establish a target-programme by 31 May of each year describing the forms of positive action that it intends to promote and the workers subject to evaluation and the criteria used.
The target-programme for 2008 also has the purpose of promoting the presence of women in managerial positions also through specific training courses; modifying the organisation of work, performance assessment and bonus systems; supporting initiatives for women workers on non-standard contracts; facilitating the work entry and/or work re-entry of women aged 45 and over; consolidating firms with female ownerships and/or a predominance of women in their governance structures; and promoting the quality of personal and professional life through the removal of stereotypes from an equal opportunity perspective. In regard to wage discrimination in particular, the target-programme establishes that positive actions should modify the organisation of work, performance evaluation and bonus systems, undertake integrated actions that produce measurable and documentable effects in terms of eliminating gender discrimination; reduce the pay differential between women and men; advance female careers also for an equitable distribution of tasks; adopt the EC strategy on female employability with flexicurity criteria (TN0803038S). Eligible for funding are public and private employers, cooperatives and their consortia, accredited vocational training centres, national and territorial trade unions, and association. The maximum duration of a project cannot be more than twenty-four months.
Among the measures that may indirectly reduce the gender wage gap are:
- Law 69, of 18 June 2009, art. 38, ‘Misure per conciliare tempi di vita e tempi di lavoro’, which amends article 9 of law 53/2000 and provides grants to employers that promote, on agreement with the trade unions, positive actions for life/work reconciliation to the benefit of dependent and self-employed workers. The positive actions eligible for funding are: projects to allow the use of forms of working-time and work-organisation flexibility, such as reversible part-time, telework and home work, hours’ banks, flexible entry or exit hours, concentrated work schedules; programs and actions to facilitate work re-entry by employees after a period of parental leave or for family reasons; innovative schemes and services in response to the work/life balance needs of workers, also through the activation of networks among local authorities, firms and social partners.
- The decree transposing Directive 2006/54/EC on implementation of the principle of equal opportunities and equal treatment of men and women in matters of employment and occupation and issued by the Council of Ministers on 31 July 2009 imposes criminal sanctions on employers that breach the rules: fines of up to EUR 50,000 may be levied and imprisonment for a year may be inflicted. The decree forbids any discrimination in access to employment, training, and career advancement. The provision grants female workers the right to continue in work until the same age limit as anticipated for men. Also recognised is legal advocacy by associations and trade unions and judicial protection for the victims of discrimination and for those who suffer reprisals from employers because they have defended a victim. Finally the decree institutes, at the Ministry of Labour, Welfare and Social Policy, a national committee for implementation of the principles of principle of equal opportunities and equal treatment between male and female workers. The National Equal Opportunities Adviser (Consigliera nazionale di parità) may conduct independent inquiries into cases of discrimination.
2.3. Please illustrate the main initiatives by the government to address the gender pay gap since 2005 in the public sector. Here the government acts as the employer and can intervene more directly, even if often the rules on compensation leave less room for pay differentials.
Article 48 of legislative decree no. 198 of 11 April 2006 requires the public administrations to draw up positive action plans for the attainment of effective parity between men and women.
On 23 May 2007, the Minister for Reform and Innovation in the Public Administration and the Minister for Equal Opportunities signed a directive ‘on measures to achieve parity and equal opportunities between men and women in the public administrations’. The directive lists the criteria that must be applied in promoting equal opportunities, among them: (1) the adoption of three-year positive action plans; (2) the creation of equal opportunity committees; (3) the promotion of parity-oriented training and organisational cultures; (4) recruitment and personnel management policies that promote the presence of female workers in senior posts; (5) an organisation of work that facilitates the work/life balance. Every year, 20 February, the personnel management and the equal opportunity committees must compile a report describing the personnel divided by gender, the actions undertaken during the year, specifying items of expenditure and the amount of resources employed, and the actions foreseen for the following years. On this basis, in September, the Civil Service Department and the Equal Opportunities Department will compile a summary report to be published and distributed to all the administrations concerned.
Article 22-ter ‘Disposizioni in materia di accesso al pensionamento’ of decree law no. 78 of 1 July 2009, known as the ‘anti-crisis decree’, enacts pensionable age equality between women and men. The article states that, beginning from 1 January 2010, the pensionable age of women will be increased by one year every two years so as to reach the threshold of 65 years as envisaged for men. Moreover, the decree establishes that, from 1 January 2015 onwards, the pensionable age of women will be aligned with the increase in life expectancy as determined by Istat and Eurostat in the previous five years. This provision concludes a legislative process following the ruling by the European Court of Justice of 13 November 2008 which described Italy as allowing discrimination (also remunerative) between the sexes because female public-sector employees could retire at a younger age than men. This verdict defined Italy as defaulter with respect to the requirements of the Art. 141 of EC Treaty. Italy, in fact, did not apply the principle of equal pay between male and female workers employed in the same position at the same level.
3. Social partner initiatives to address the gender pay gap
3.1. In light of the current economic crisis, have the social partners, whether unilaterally or jointly, taken any steps to assess and monitor the impact of the current economic downturn on gender pay inequalities? If yes, please briefly illustrate them, including the results of such assessment. Have the social partners started any initiatives to prevent or address the possible widening of the gender pay gap because of the economic downturn?
No initiatives have been directly planned and implemented for this purpose. Concerns about the effects of the crisis on female employment and wage discrimination have been expressed by the trade unions.
Some allegations have been made by the Italian Federation of Metalworkers (Federazione Impiegati Operai Metallurgici, Fiom), affiliated to the General Confederation of Italian Workers (Confederazione Generale Italiana del Lavoro, Cgil). Announced in April 2008 were the results of a survey on the living and working conditions of metalworkers, which reported the presence of a 20% gender wage differential. In 2009, the Fiom-Cgil national secretariat commented on official Inps data for 2008, according to which women represented more than 55% of the total of 690,000 workers involved in restructuring processes with the recourse to the Wages Guarantee Fund schemes. Since women account for only 28% of the working population, it is clear that they are paying the heaviest price for the recent economic crisis.
Protest initiatives have been carried forward by the women’s committees of the Public Service Union (Federazione lavoratori della funzione pubblica, Fp), affiliated to the Cgil and the Fiom-Cgil, including the general strike of 13 February 2009. Claims have been advanced in regard to female employment, reduction of work schedules, and the restoration of legislative and contractual constraints on working time.
3.2. Please indicate whether the gender pay gap has figured prominently on the trade union agenda since 2005. Have the trade unions initiated in this period any specific initiatives to address the gender pay gap? Please illustrate the most important of such initiatives.
In the past four years, there have been numerically few trade-union initiatives directly centered on the gender pay gap.
A working group on equal opportunities, which includes the social representatives who compose the National Council for Economic Affairs and Labour (Consiglio Nazionale dell’Economia e del Lavoro, Cnel) directory board, has drawn up a commentary document on implementation of European Directive 2006/54/EC. The main measures proposed by the document are the introduction of control systems to eliminate the pay differential: for instance, the creation of a gender parity authority.
The Italian Metal-Mechanical Federation (Federazione italiana metalmeccanici, Fim), affiliated to the Italian Confederation of Workers’ Unions (Confederazione italiana sindacati lavoratori, Cisl), and Fiom-Cgil have recently called for the amendment of measures considered discriminatory in legislative decrees 93/2008, 97/2008 and 112/2008. Some of these measures, such as tax abatement on overtime and the non-contractual parts of the wage, further widen the gender wage gap – job and level remaining equal.
Various equal opportunities initiatives have been launched at territorial level through collaboration between the social partners and above all the equal opportunities advisers (provincial and regional). Some of these initiatives concern pay discrimination, albeit indirectly. An example is provided by the draft agreements on the promotion of equal opportunities involving Cgil, Cisl and the Union of Italian Workers (Unione italiana del lavoro, Uil), the municipal administrations and the provincial equal opportunities advisers. Such measures are often aimed at removing discriminatory mechanisms and at achieving equal opportunities in the world of work by means of monitoring instruments and positive actions.
Various training courses have been organised by the trade unions with external experts in order to spread a gender and equal opportunities culture in trade-union work in general and collective bargaining in particular. The courses are usually intended for Rsu/Rsa delegates, members of steering committees, front-office employees, young officials, and service employees.
3.3. Please indicate whether the gender pay gap has figured prominently on the employer associations agenda since 2005. Have the main employer associations initiated in this period any specific initiatives to address the gender pay gap? Please illustrate the most important of such initiatives.
Various equal opportunities initiatives have been undertaken at regional and provincial level, and some of them have indirectly concerned wage discrimination.
The most frequent of these initiatives consist in support for female entrepreneurship through the financing of specific management training courses for women, the creation of assistance and advice services for female enterprises, and projects for corporate flexibility (for example, the ‘CNA Impresa Donna-Spido’ advice bureau).
Other initiatives concern the diffusion of in-company diversity management practices. Particularly interesting in this regard is the project entitled ‘Equal Opportunities Workshop: Practices to Combat Stereotypes’, promoted by Arcidonna as part of the EC Equal program in Sicily and supported by Confindustria and Cgil.
Finally, some initiatives are targeted on the promotion of equal opportunities in companies through the signing of agreements among employer associations: for instance, the agreement in the province in Turin on ‘the diffusion of a conciliation culture, empowerment and good equal opportunities practices’, signed by a group of employer associations (Apid, Api Torino, Casartigiani Torino, Coldiretti Torino, CNA regionale del Piemonte, Confartigianato Imprese Torino, Confcooperative Torino. For further examples, see the last part of point 4.1).
3.4. Please indicate whether multi-employer collective bargaining has contributed to address the gender pay gap since 2005. Has multi-employer collective bargaining introduced specific clauses or instruments to address the gender pay gap? Please illustrate the most important of such clauses or instruments.
The majority of national collective agreements contain declarations of principle on the importance of equal opportunities from the social and economic point of view. However, the means proposed to achieve this goal are rather diversified. Some consist in simple application of the law; others are formal pledges to promote equal opportunities without instruments of any kind being proposed; yet others call for the creation of specific commissions, committees and working groups.
More infrequent is the presence of clauses in agreements relative to the work re-entry of women after maternity leave, the recovery of their skills after a long absence, social services for workers with children, and the work/life balance.
3.5. Please indicate whether single-employer collective bargaining and social dialogue practices at company level have contributed to address the gender pay gap since 2005. Has single-employer collective bargaining introduced specific clauses or instruments to address the gender pay gap at company level? Please illustrate the most important of such clauses or instruments.
Company-level agreements contain specific clauses on:
- life/work reconciliation. Measures to protect maternity (higher pay during maternity leave, paternal leave of absence, skills updating on work re-entry); changes to working-time arrangements (job sharing, more opportunities for part-time work, extension of paid leave, hours’ banks); services (creation of nurseries, services to the family and the person, coordination between the opening hours of shops/offices and the timetables of local transport services).
- Positive gender actions. Creation of in-company equal opportunities committees, codes of behaviour against harassment, elimination of discrimination in access to work and careers, specific training.
3.6. Has the issue of the gender pay gap been particularly important in certain sectors? If yes, please indicate the sectors involved (up to three), the main reasons of such relevance and its most significant expressions and achievements (up to three for each sector - unilateral actions by employers or unions, joint initiatives, collective bargaining).
The gender wage gap is widest in the textiles sector (20.5%), banking (17.8%) and the food industry (17.4%). In these sectors the percentage of female employment amounts respectively to 53.4%, 32.1% and 38.2% (Panel Isfol, on Inps 2002 data). Nevertheless, the most significant initiatives have been taken in the public sector and in the metalworking sector, which suggests that trade-union resilience is the key factor in explaining the greater activity in regard to the issue of the gender pay gap.
4. Good practices
4.1. Since 2005, have there been any major initiatives to identify, collect and disseminate good practices on equal pay or more generally on gender equality in employment?
A number of regional-level initiatives have indirectly addressed the issue of the gender pay gap.
In 2007 Legacoop launched a project to disseminate ‘good practices’, entitled ‘Azioni positive per lo sviluppo di carriera femminile: sperimentazione di percorsi di consulenza alle organizzazioni’, co-financed by the European Union (European Social Fund Ob.3 E1s rif. PA 2004-761 / Rer - D.G.R. no. 406 of 16.2.2005). The project is coordinated by an SME development agency promoted by the Lega delle Cooperative (Centro Sviluppo Piccola e Media Impresa, Cesvip), in collaboration with the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia and an employment agency (Workopp). The project has involved six cooperatives operating in various sectors (tertiary, services to the person and businesses, commerce and manufacturing) with centres in Parma, Modena and Reggio Emilia. The ‘good practices’ identified in the cooperatives concern four areas in particular: access to work, maternity, organisation of work (above all working time), and professional development. The actions concern: projects and initiatives to assist work re-entry following maternity leave with training and/or communication between firm and worker during the period of absence; opportunities for working time flexibility; a concern by the employer for the individual employee (transfers and/or evening or weekend shiftwork) with specific arrangements.
The project entitled ‘Una Questione Privata. Non tenere al proprio tempo è una questione di spazio’ begun in 2008. The project’s initiatives were managed by a private partnership (Cesvip, Iris Formazione, Cni Ecipar, Centro Documentazione Donna, in collaboration with the Department of Economics of the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia), with the involvement of Legacoop. They have been supported by the three public authorities belonging to the ‘development partnership’: the provincial administrations of Piacenza, Parma and Modena. The aim of the project is to trial and activate in-company services, most notably a ‘care voucher’ scheme and a time bank. The former scheme consists of vouchers issued to workers with problems of work/family reconciliation; the latter is intended to foster a network of exchanges in which each worker can make his/her time and skills available for exchange with the time and skills made available by other workers.
Implemented in 2009 was a project entitled ‘Best in class: l’Eccellenza dall’Esperienza’ (BIC) promoted by Sistemi formativi Confindustria (SfC), in collaboration with the municipality of Rome, Confindustria and the Associazione imprenditrici e donne dirigenti d’azienda (Aidda), and financed by the National Equal Opportunities Committee – Ministry of Labour, Health and Social Protection (Comitato nazionale di parità - Ministero del Lavoro e della Previdenza Sociale). The Committee approved the project within the framework of the target-program for the promotion of female employment. The aim of the project is to identify and valorise the equal opportunities practices put in place by SMEs. Analysis has been made of best practices (554 practices to promote equal opportunities in 182 SMEs), and it has highlighted various factors differentiating the practices of SMEs from those of large companies.
5. Commentary
5.1. Please provide your own assessment and comments on the initiatives to address the gender pay gap covered by this comparative study, including any further information that you consider important to illustrate the state-of-play of pay equity in your country.
The gender pay gap is still wide in the Italian labour market. Discrimination is still an extremely significant factor in explaining the wage differential, and it is increasing despite a tendency for the overall pay gap to diminish. Reducing the gender wage gap is also essential for increasing the share of women in the labour market, which is a problem of particular importance in Italy. The lack of suitable welfare measures and the predominant responsibility of women for care-work not only discourage female employment, especially in low-skilled occupations, but also hinder the development of female professional careers in high-skilled ones. Despite widespread awareness that gender wage discrimination exists, the initiatives expressly undertaken to reduce it are restricted to specific cases. Legislative measures, in fact, often consist only in declarations of principle and rarely put concrete instruments in place. The social partners advance specific demands regarding the gender pay gap only sporadically. The issue is therefore marginal compared with others – principally work/life reconciliation – and often evident is a lack of distinction between gender policies and those for parenthood, although these have anyway had little impact.
Stefania Marino, Università degli Studi di Milano